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THE ‘BEGINNING OI GEORGE TRUETT
Story of the First Speech Wade at the Georgia "Baptist Contention Which Introduced to the World
This Conquering Young "Son of the Mountains. ”
LL the world loves a hero, and we like
wise love to study the beginning of
greatness. The meeting of the Southern
Baptist Convention in Louisville next
week furnishes an opportune time to give
story which many do not know —the
story of the introduction of George
cuett to the world.
Humbly before God the great Texas
A
preacher “ stands like a tower with its crown in the
sun.” His brethren crown him with their love be
cause he has never found out that he is great. This
story for your scrap book is given in a speech by
the editor of The Golden Age to the Boys’ High
School of Atlanta.
Let me give you a little history concerning the
life of a leader among men whom God had made
one of the most remarkable preachers of modern
times. I shall never forget the first time I ever
heard from him. I was lying on a bed eight miles
and a half from Marietta, in Cobb county, Georgia,
where I spent nearly seven years a “prisoner of
hope.” The Georgia Baptist Convention was in ses
sion in Marietta, 'and my father went in every day
and came home for night. One evening on his re
turn from the convention, he stood by my bedside
and said: “My son, we came very near having a
sensation today in the convention.”
“Tell me about it,” I said, with naturaj expect
ancy.
“Well,” said he, “F. C. McConnell was making
a speech on Mercer University. Just as he was
closing* he said: ‘There is a young boy here at the
convention who ought to be in Mercer. He has
been teaching school at Hiawasee for two or three
years, but he has never had a college training and
I want to see hi menter Mercer. I wish h would
get up and say a few words to this convention. Get
up, George. Get up and say a few words.’ And a
beardless, diffident youth arose, with hesitation, and
began to say: ‘I never saw such a great, big,
fine body of men as this before in all my life. The
truth is, I am so scared my knees are making war
on each other, and I hardly know which one of my
father’s boys I am. But,’ said the young man, and
voice began to ring with a cadence that arrested at
tention and struck all hearts, ‘I have been im
pressed as this discussion on education has pro
ceeded, that some of the people of this convention
do not seem to realize what they have in Mercer
University. They have not been with me up in the
mountains; they have not seen the gleam of Mer
cer’S light gliding over the mountain tops and light
ing up the valleys; they have not seen the boys who
are catching its radiance in their hearts, and they
Wave not seen the homes that have been blessed,
ATLANTA, GA., MAY 6, 1909.
the churches that h°ve been quickened, and the lives
that have been ' '•Jed and transformed by Mer
cer’s marvelous i <e!’ And thus he went on
and on, speaking . magnetism and an elo
quence that stirred an Med the convention into
an enthusiasm that can ’>e understood by one
who did not hear that mat speech of that won
derful mountain youth.”
Everybody turned all eyes on . Men marvelled,
women cried, and on every side people were saying
under their breath, “Who on earth is he?” “Where
did he come from?” “I never heard such a speech
GEORGE W. TRUETT.
from a boy in my life! ’ ’ And the young man from
the mountains sat down amid a very delirium of
startled surprise and tearful delight. And C. B.
Willingham, the great-hearted brother of our be
loved Dr. R. B. Willingham, sprang to his feet and
said; “I want the privilege of putting that young
man through Mercer University”! And George
W. Truett had spoken to the world. But the young
man did not go to Mercer University. His father
decided to carry his large family to the growing
Empire of Texas, and this young adopted son of
Georgia from the border line of his native North
Carolina, became a student of that splendid institu
tion, Grayson College, at Whiteright, Texas. There
he studied for about a year, taking -an active part in
college debates and being commendably active in
the prayer meetings and general church work.
Just at that time Texas Baptists were passing
through the throes of sore distress and anxious ap
prehension concerning the future, indeed, the very
life, of Baylor University. The cloud of nearly a
hundred thousand dollars of debt hung over them.
Strong men, good men, had tried to marshal the
forces, but it seemed that they could not begin to
win.
The convention had .gone home from its last ses
sion with the injunction to ask God to raise up a
man, like another Moses, to lead his people out of
the wilderness of debt and gloom into the victory
of financial freedom and untrammeled progress.
The Face of a Youth Appears.
Not long after this, one day a straightforward,
stalwart Christian man named R. F. Jenkins, then
pastor at Whiteright, Texas, arose from his knees
with the face of George Truett before him. He had
not observed the youth in vain. He had heard him
in college debate; he had seen and felt the tonic of
his personal magnetism among the Grayson students
and the young people of the town, and seemed to
hear the tocsin of his eloquent words and life all
over the plains of that mighty empire, calling* the
people to Baylor and victory.
Jenkins wrote what must have been a very re
markable letter to Dr. B. H. Carroll, the great intel
lectual and spiritual giant of Texas, suggesting
George Truett to lead the great campaign fo(r
Baylor. I say remarkable, for it must indeed have
been a very remarkable sort of letter that impressed
Dr. Carroll with the idea of calling au unknown
young man a stranger in Texas, and absolutely with
out experience in such work, to a position so wide
in its scope and so overwhelming* in its responsi
bility.
Carroll and Truett Meet
But Dr. Carroll wrote to the young Grayson stu
dent and urged him to take the place, whereupon
George Truett promptly declined, pleading the fact
of youth and inexperience as well as being a stran
ger to the people of Texas, himself without college
training, and he said he could not think of leading
such a work which men of ability arid consecration
Wad failed to do. Then young Truett was laid on
bed with measles, from which he relapsed, and for
several weeks the little circle of those who loved
him around Whiteright were exceedingly anxious
for his life. Thank God, he dm not die! Mean
time Dr. Carroll continued to importune him with
letters. Finally, Truett agreed to meet him at an
association at McKinney. I have been a guest in
the noble home where he was guest, and Brother
Conch, the consecrated owner of that home, told me
that George Truett spent most of his time an his
(Continued on Page 9.)
TWO DOLIAKS A TEAK.
TIVE CtNTS A COPY.
